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I have a smattering of exposure to several languages, and it appears to me that many languages allow a simpler* negation than we usually use in English. They allow the insertion of a word like no or not, without any additional verb.

For example in Spanish we can negate the sentence Yo como (I eat) as Yo no como (I do not eat). No Spanish word corresponds to the word do, which we add in English.

I do the dishes in the morning? Cool. I don't the dishes at night? Something's wrong.

There are a few archaic exceptions.

  • There's a sort of archaic negative imperative, as in Ask not what your country can do for you. Yoda approached it with his injunction Do or do not.
  • And in the archaic indicative, Ophelia mentioned to Laertes a certain proud and reckless libertine who recks not his own reed.

But most of us, living neither a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away nor in Elizabethan Denmark, would find other phrasings more natural. We seem to use negations pretty exclusively in multi-word verb forms. For example:

  • In infinitives: I like to not go, or I like not to go (with various degrees of clunkiness)
  • With helping verbs: I am [not] swimming.

But usually, we not just add not.

So what ever happened to English? Is there an interesting story behind our inability to negate simply?

NB: When I use the words "simple" and "simpler," I'm not thinking about whether children growing up in various places find it easy or hard to learn the local language, or about whether adult native speakers find it easy or hard to communicate, or about whether adults learning a given language as a second language find that easy or hard to do. I'm not thinking about difficulty at all. I'm just referring to the addition of a single word as "simpler" than the addition of a group of words, for reasons that seem obvious to me but which I find I cannot explain at all. The "simple negation" of my title, and the "simpler negation" of my first sentence, is simply (that is, onewordishly) a one-word negation.

Chaim
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  • the idea that simplicity coincides with how many words are involved or even what structure(s) are involved seems HIGHLY MISPLACED, since little children of all languages EASILY learn the appropriate ways to signal "simple negative" and since saying one's language's "method" is more "simpler" than another seems misplaced in general. It's real harder to say non como hoy than I don't eat today? – Arm the good guys in America Dec 04 '19 at 19:27
  • @green_ideas I don't understand this remark. Is your point that Americans effortlessly learn to use our language? Although I used the words "simple" and "simpler," I didn't mean to comment on the amount of trouble involved. – Chaim Dec 04 '19 at 19:52
  • i don't have adequate time right now for much than this: I find doubtful the idea that any language has a less or more simpler way of making negations, even if some involve only the word no and not.... but in English you could say, think not and I ate not but then do-support of negatives came in; I think there has been questions about this topic on this site; maybe you could search for do support – Arm the good guys in America Dec 04 '19 at 20:04
  • Supposedly 'do' support for negation is from the Celtic substrate (as that family is the only one that also has it). Where -they- got it from I don't know. – Mitch Dec 04 '19 at 21:13
  • Many languages have a two-part negation system, with elements going both before and after the verb. French is a well-known example; Welsh has a similar pattern to French; but Amharic also does this (though they are incorporated into the word rather than being separate words). – Colin Fine Dec 04 '19 at 22:49
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    Spanish verbs are conjugated, English verbs are not. Those all have to be learned and beware of the subjunctive and when to use it. Overall, you learn one pattern in English (do not/does not for negative). But every single verb is the same. Who says this is complicated??? I vote to close this question. – Lambie Dec 04 '19 at 22:52
  • @Lambie How are any of your ideas relevant here, that Spanish verbs are conjugated and English verbs are not, or that languages must be learned (including, for some reason, the subjunctive), or that the English system is not complicated? – Chaim Dec 06 '19 at 00:31
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    @Chaim It is very relevant. The OP asks where is the simple negation enjoyed by the rest of the world's peoples". And the "ability to negative simply". Really?? The question is a false one. If you are comparing the differences between languages, verbs are much more complicated in Spanish than English. The conditional of the verb comer has 5 different endings in Spanish, in English one little word does the job for all persons (I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they: would. – Lambie Dec 06 '19 at 15:52
  • @Lambie I'm the OP. The point was to negate simply. As I explained, we can do that in Spanish (and, I think, many languages), but not in English. My point was not that it's easier to speak one language than another, so it seems to me that other differences between the languages are not really relevant. – Chaim Dec 06 '19 at 17:27
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    @Chaim There is no such thing as "negate simply" except in your misunderstanding of how language works. It assumes that the negation in English is not simple or that it is complex. The kind of question you pose is called a false question as it is based on a faulty understanding of how language(s) work. – Lambie Dec 06 '19 at 17:29
  • @Lambie Gosh. Can you 'splain it to me? Perhaps in an answer rather than a comment. – Chaim Dec 06 '19 at 19:37
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    The problem is simple: You are making a value judgement, and even including the "rest of the world's peoples" in it (there are some 6,000 extant languages, do you know how most of them do negation??). All languages have their own logic so the statement that English has an "inability to negate simply" is misguided. Anyway, people have abilities, not languages. – Lambie Dec 06 '19 at 19:59
  • @Lambie So in other words you don't actually know anything about the subject of my question, why English requires more than one word to negate a verb while many languages do this with one word? – Chaim Dec 08 '19 at 21:45
  • It's not enjoyed? – Hot Licks Dec 11 '19 at 18:31
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    'Something's wrong.' could be seen as a form of racism in this context. 'There's something wrong with your language.' Every Anglophone knows that English is crazy in various areas. But we don't usually go around saying 'There's something wrong with your language' to people using other languages. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 11 '19 at 19:52
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    @Edwin Ashworth I'm mystified. I wrote the words "I don't the dishes at night? Something's wrong." And your point is that there's nothing wrong with the sentence "I don't the dishes"? My words don't suggest that there's something wrong with people using other languages. But would that suggestion be racist, the disparaged group being all speakers of other languages? Much of the interest in ELL depends on the assumption that it's possible to speak English well or badly, whether we usually go around saying so or not. – Chaim Dec 11 '19 at 23:03
  • Again @Chaim you are assuming that English's "requir[ing] more than one word to negate a verb" is somehow less simple or more difficult than languages that require one word to make a negation, which assumption/statement you've not supported by linguistic demonstration or confirmation. Length of utterance and number of words involved in a construction does not equate to more or less simple or difficult, linguistically speaking. – Arm the good guys in America Dec 12 '19 at 01:51
  • << I do the dishes in the morning? Cool. I don't the dishes at night? Something's wrong. >> Can mean either << Consider the sentence 'I do the dishes in the morning' – it's totally acceptable. But the sentence one might expect to be used to express the negation, 'I don't the dishes at night' is ungrammatical. >> or << Consider the sentence 'I do the dishes in the morning'. No problems here. But 'I don't the dishes at night' constitutes a problem >>. // Note that I'm merely trying to explain why the pro-English lobbyists might be vociferous here. Every language has its pros and cons. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 12 '19 at 12:26
  • @Edwin Ashworth So when you mentioned racism in a previous comment your point was that I should clearly say that the bad phrasing "constitutes a problem" so that I don't seem to mean that the bad phrasing "is ungrammatical"? – Chaim Dec 12 '19 at 16:50
  • @green_ideas Did my new footnote respond adequately to this problem? – Chaim Dec 12 '19 at 17:02
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    @Edwin Ashworth "'Something's wrong.' could be seen as a form of racism in this context." Please let's not see racism in every imperfectly worded statement -- or even in every well-worded statement based on a misapprehension of how, e.g., gravity works. The title makes it clear that it is ENGLISH that is lacking a form that is "enjoyed by the rest of the world's peoples." – ab2 Dec 12 '19 at 17:23
  • why don't you change 'simple negation' to 'one-word negation'? – Arm the good guys in America Dec 12 '19 at 19:04
  • @ab2 ReinstateMonicaNow 'Please let's not see racism in every imperfectly worded statement' implies I'm seeing racism here. As I carefully explained, I'm saying that others could do. Please read more carefully and be less ready to make personal comments. The original comment was upvoted. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 13 '19 at 11:08
  • @Edwin Ashworth Maybe this has run its course and I should just drop it. But I still don't even know which version you were recommending (the bad phrasing "constitutes a problem" or "is ungrammatical"), or why either one could be considered racist. – Chaim Dec 13 '19 at 12:52
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    @Edwin Ashworth What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. You should read more carefully too. – ab2 Dec 13 '19 at 13:31
  • Does this answer your question? English questions and negation with *do* in syntax... 'A former lecturer of mine once explained why, from a syntactic point of view, the English rule that negation and questions are formed with the auxiliary do follows from other syntactic facts about English.... Can someone explain what exactly...?' – Edwin Ashworth Dec 13 '19 at 17:17

1 Answers1

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As people have said in the comments, your question is probably linked to the development of do-support in English. The topic is complicated and is still being researched. Here is an example of what people have said about its development in Middle English:

We show that the patterns in the development of do-support in imperatives as well as in questions and negative declaratives can be explained if the loss of verb movement occurs in two steps in the history of English with the loss of the higher movement preceding the loss of the lower movement. … In early Modern English (ca.1500-ca.1700), the use of do in these contexts was variable but increased over time. Ellegård provides a quantitative study of the development of do forms in various sentence types using a collection of sentences extracted from texts ranging in time from late Middle English to the 18th century. … After the middle of the 16th century, the frequency of do in (non-emphatic) affirmative declaratives declines steadily until, by 1700, the use of do in this environment is prohibited. The frequency of do in negative declaratives and in both affirmative and negative questions rises continuously until sometime after the 18th century, do becomes obligatory in these environments.

The analysis gets a bit technical. In fact, for me, it's a bit over my head, but this is the level that will be necessary to follow the discussion:

According to Roberts (1985) and Kroch (1989b), English completely lost V-I movement for lexical verbs in the middle of the 16th century. When V-I movement was lost, only be, auxiliary have and the modal verbs (can, may, must, etc.) could appear in I0. Based on the behavior of indicative sentences, Roberts argues that the rise of do forms is a reflex of the loss of V-I movement. As V-I movement was lost, INFL lowering replaced it and so the verb came to remain in situ. In questions, the requirement that a verbal material move to C0 persists; thus, auxiliary do is inserted in I0 as a last resort device and then moves to C0.

The full paper, The rise of do-support in English, is freely available here. Of course, it contains references to other work on the subject.

linguisticturn
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